Red Hot Embers
by Raven-Leigh
Summary: A sequel to Fanning the Flames. Sephiroth is back, but broken. He doesn't know where to turn and contemplates ending it to spare his lover and the world suffering. Everything in here belongs to respective owners, including characters and YouTube.
1. Little More Than Hope

_This is a sequel to Fanning the Flames. It's done for my sister and best friend, Emily, who is hopelessly in love with the pairing. Love you, Emmy._

"Seph, ya gotta help me a little here. The doc said you gotta move to get your arms back in the way they were." Reno glared down at his lover in an irritated fashion as he tried to tend to one of the wounds. Sephiroth had been broken and bruised when he'd returned to him, and he didn't seem to be getting any better. In fact, the many wounds that were appearing on him looked fresh, as if something inside of him was lashing out because of prior sins. "If ya don't move around, ya ain't gonna get no better."

Green eyes slowly opened, staring at the ceiling. He didn't want to move. He didn't want to shift, didn't want to face the world, didn't even want to look out of the window or see sunshine. To have your humanity stripped away, to be lowered to the rank of a piss ant and relieved of your title, to lose your mind and then gain it again, only to have people stare at you as if you were a monster. Sephiroth wished at that point that he'd died. That Cloud had buried his buster sword deep into his heart and held him as he died. Sephiroth realized one thing with absolute clarity, one thing that he couldn't dismiss as painkillers working at the tattered edges of his mind and soul.

He wanted to die.

Sephiroth knew that he was supposed to die in that crater. Yet, he'd lived on by sheer willpower if not power of body, and he'd continued. His existence was a mystery that none of the remaining ShinRa scientists could figure out. He'd lived despite all that had gone on, appeared through remains of his body that had lingered in the Jenova Cells that'd rained at the end of the Great Meteor Year. Geostigma had kept him alive. The ex-general slowly blinked, trying to think on that. Geostigma had kept him alive. Geostigma had killed a great many men, women, and children. It hadn't discriminated, after all. Geostigma had plagued people, drove them mad with anger and brutality. Geostigma had stricken the world with absolute brutality and left half of its inhabitants insane with fear, the ones that had remained. Surely, a cure had come. A cure had reached those that were left and it was eradicated, but Sephiroth had survived and reformed in his nest in the Northern Crater, where the entire situation had started.

The silver one smiled without humor as he remembered the burn of the sun, beating down on his body on that first day. He'd lain there staring at the sky for what felt like days, but he knew it was only one. The sun had risen that morning and driven its path across the sky, setting before he was able to drag his broken body upward to start the long trek home. And the journey had been anything but pleasant. He'd traipsed his way across the snow, across the long expanse of land, surviving only on what seemed to be sheer stubbornness. However, he knew that it wasn't possible for him to die before he reached home. There was only one reason for him to return home, and that reason was currently irritated at him. Sephiroth knew he had every right to be, but it hurt all the same that he was.

"God damnit SEPHIROTH! SIT YOUR ASS UP AND TAKE THE GOD DAMN MEDICINE!"

"I don't want to."

"FUCK!" Sephiroth heard the faint sound of a breaking mirror on the other side of the room. Probably the pill bottle. "GET YOUR ASS UP! NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW! BITCH, GET UP!" The silver one was once again amazed at his little boyfriend's strength. Sephiroth was heavy due to the vast amount of metallic mako that was running through his veins, and for Reno to reach underneath his shoulders and shove him up without another word, without even straining, he knew that his lover was quite annoyed. "Take your god damn medicine, get your ass well so you can stop mopin' like a bitch! So ya killed a bunch'a people. SO WHAT?! God damnit DO WHAT I SAY!"

Sephiroth did it just for meanness. "No." Then quickly saw a flash of knuckle and blackness.

**********

"Well... Reno, you know that he's having trouble with memories, most likely." Rufus tapped his pen against his lower lip as he stared without seeing at the opposite wall. He was still using Healin Lodge as his headquarters, mainly out of necessity than want. His building was under construction, waiting for more funding which he lacked, amazingly. "Sephiroth has done many things that he's likely uncomfortable with when it comes to venting. It's poisoning his mind and making him lose touch with reality. If you committed as many crimes as he has, would you be comfortable with drawing breath when your victims couldn't?"

Reno took a ragged breath on the other end of the phone, released it. He tried to ignore the annoying tears that were streaming down his face. "I dunno, yo. I thought he was gonna be the same ol' Seph when he came back. I thought he was gonna be alright, but he's been talkin' strange. Talkin' about how he's so sorry he came back. Talkin' about how he don't wanna live no more. Ru, what do I do about it? I dunno what to do 'sides lock his happy ass up in a loony bin somewhere, and I'm scared they'd mistreat him cuz'a what he did. I dun wanna do that, but if I came back one day an' found him dead on the floor I'd never forgive myself."

Rufus took a sip of the tea on his desk, pondering the thought of Sephiroth leaving the world. "Didn't he tell you that he woke in the Northern Crater?"

"Yeah, but what's that got to do with shit, yo?"

He smiled at no one in particular. "If Sephiroth made a journey halfway across the world just to get to you in the broken state that he was in, do you really think he would remove himself permanently from your presence? Sephiroth belongs to you, and what a dangerous weapon to possess. I don't think you have to worry much, but all the same, I'm giving you leave to be with him. Call me whenever you need something and I'll see what I can do, but don't be disappointed if I can't help. It's going to take time. He's going to need a lot of time. He might never get over this, Reno." He sipped his tea again, playing with the handle as he set it down. "Be prepared for him to never recover. It might be easier than expecting something and never obtaining what you expected."

Reno swallowed the lump in his throat and kept his eyes closed. "I guess. I mean... Thanks, Rufus. I gotta go."

"Take care, Reno. Give Sephiroth my regards."

"Will do. Bye, boss."

Rufus stared at the wall as Reno hung up and followed shortly, shook his head. "One day, they might just recover together."


	2. Snuff It Out

"Seph ain't doin' so hot." He took a deep breath and released it, taking another long drag from his cigarette before placing it back down. "He's been starin' at the wall for a long time now and I dunno what the hell I'ma do. It's like he ain't got the will to live. He won't eat. He just sleeps an' then he wakes up like he's been havin' a nightmare, yo. His eyes are always real wild and scared and I can't lie. I'm kinda scared sometimes that he's gonna go on a psychopath and murder me and everybody in our apartment complex."

"Your apartment complex?" The neatly dressed woman looked up from her pad, stopped her scribbling. "I thought you were living in his quarters?"

"That shit wasn't workin' so well. See, doc. He wasn't doin' good at all in that place. Kept mutterin' about somethin' in the dark, waitin', watchin'. I figured it was easier for us t'move back where I was before so I could keep a closer watch on 'im. I'm on paid leave, takin' care of a man that can't take care'a himself. What the hell'm I s'posed to do? Shit wasn't s'posed to be like this. He was s'posed to be all good an' stuff by now, s'posed to be cured. It happened a long time ago an' I just figured he'd be alright by now."

"Now Reno." She placed the pad down and crossed her hands over her knee, tilting her head with concern. "Sephiroth has gone through a very tramatic experience. The entire world knew his name before this, and now the entire world knows and hates it. He was the beloved star of the world, and then all of a sudden, something clicked in his mind, and when he woke up, his world was gone, crumbled away. He's having problems dealing with his feelings of depression, and you're keying into those emotions. The more depressed your lover becomes, the more you slide into the hole with him. Your feelings are tied together because of your close proximity to one another, day in and day out. I think the best thing for you to do is commit your significant other, Reno."

Reno's eyes widened and he almost dropped his cigarette. "WHA?! I can't leave'im alone in a place! I can't just drop 'im like a bad habit, yo! I promised 'im I'd take care and I ain't breakin' that promise just cuz some weird fuckin' shrink thinks she knows what's best for MY family! Yo, he's here to stay, and ain't no place gonna take 'im anyway, remember?! They're scared SHITLESS of 'im. They'd tie 'im up...mistreat 'im... He'd be more miserable there than he would at home with me, and I ain't gonna have that. I love Seph, and I'll be with 'im 'til one of us dies and then if he dies 'fore I do, I might just follow 'im." He put his cigarette out in the ash tray next to his chair. "Doc, I dun think I wanna come here no more. I could be usin' the insurance to get 'im more help than I could gettin' myself some."

"Reno, I don't recommend that you stop coming. If you do, then you might lose a part of yourself. You need someone to talk to about your problems, no matter if you want to or not. You're only human, and it's very natural to want help."

Reno snorted. "I dun want'cher help, yo. You're tellin' me I gotta dump my boyfriend in a commit place like he's some fuckin' piece'a garbage that don't deserve no hands on treatment. I'ma man'a my word. I told 'im I'd love 'im forever, an' I ain't goin' back on my word. So doc, kindly fuck yourself and go preach t'somebody else, yo."

"You came to me, Reno. I didn't go to you."

"Fuck you. Rufus told me to come to ya, I didn't come by choice. I won't be back, so ya can kiss my ass, yo." He turned and walked back, leaving the psychiatrist staring at the wall.

oooooooooo

Sephiroth took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. It was painful. His existence was painful, his body was painful, the fractures that were mending were irrevocably painful. Everything hurt, from his eyes, to his bones, to his muscles, to his insides. Speaking of eyes, he opened them. They weren't the same. They were dull, without life. They had nothing for anyone in them, not even his beloved Reno. He was a shell of himself, and the horrible thing was that the ex-general knew it. The silver one rolled over onto his back in bed, feeling of the spot that was empty next to him. Reno had been up for how long? A very long time, he figured. He'd been asleep most of the day, as was normal. Sephiroth didn't get up out of bed anymore unless he was made to by his nurse maid, and that was after much coaxing and prodding. "I love you, Reno." The admission of affection was lost on empty air. His lover wasn't there and so he couldn't exactly hear it, could he?

The ex-general hadn't been very loving. He'd come home, collapsed in his lover's arms, and had become a burden that was impossible to take care of some days. Reno struggled with him, begged him, pleaded with him, and often reduced himself to tears when he thought he was in the privacy of the next room. Sephiroth still had his advanced hearing, knew that his lover was upset, and yet he couldn't really bring himself to be any different. In the throes of depression, he'd neglected his own needs, and if one couldn't meet those, then how were they supposed to meet the needs of another?

He rolled over onto his stomach and pressed his face down in the pillow. Purposely cutting off his own air supply. Maybe he would die and pass on, finally, no more burden to anyone except burial. _Fuck burial. Let the vultures eat my body. No one will have to visit the grave. No one will have to remember. I want to be a memory. I want to fade away._ A flash of Reno's face came through his mind. _He would mourn until he died. I don't know why. Why do you care about me? I did nothing but cause the world pain. They simultaneously screamed when I returned again, simultaneously rejoiced when I disappeared. I've reappeared again and yet no one seems nervous. Why? Am I forgotten already? I wish._ He pressed his face further into the pillow, though his lungs burned for air.

_I'm going to pass out... Maybe when I pass out, I won't be able to breathe. Can I smother myself? It's going to hurt. I'm not scared. I'm not scared of anything but being alone. I'm already alone. Nobody knows what's going on. I don't have anyone to compare this with. I lost myself when I lost my mind, and it never came back. Please let me die. I don- _He gasped as he was jerked out of his silent revalry by a firm hand on his head, snatching his hair up and by default his face out of the pillow. His eyes were wide as he stared at the headboard, his vision swimming in and out of focus as he saw a tendril of red hair.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YA, YO?!" Reno's face suddenly appeared, nose-to-nose with Sephiroth's, and his eyes were BURNING. "Ya could'a died, ya stupid bastard! What the fuck're ya tryin' t'do?!" Sephiroth was in shock already, and the slap across the side of his face brought him back down to earth. He shoved his elbows underneath his body to support his weight as Reno released his hair. "I came home t'see about'cha, see if you're a little bit more sane and what the fuck're you tryin' to do?! You're tryin' to smother your stupid ass in the fuckin' pillow like ya ain't got nothin' to live for! I'm tired'a your fuckin' CHILDISH shit, Seph! GROW. UP, GOD DAMNIT!" He received another harsh slap before Reno stomped out of the room.

Sephiroth stared at the headboard, gathering his scattered, fractured thoughts. He was out of breath, his face was flushed, and his back was hurting again, along with his scalp from the hair jerk. "... I love you, Reno."

"FUCK YOU SEPH!"


	3. Medication

"Ya can't just off yerself, yo. Can'tcha go'ta counselin' or somethin'? Ya don't even try'n get out no more, Seph. What'cha gonna do, just sit here an' rot like you're doin' so far? I mean… It's like you're tryin' t'fade away." Reno picked at his potatoes with his fork. "An' I'll be sad if ya succeed and fade."

Sephiroth sat there, staring down at his plate. He didn't want anything to eat. Reno had noticed and threatened many times to hospitalize him if he didn't take in his basic needs. And he knew that Sephiroth hated hospitals, knew it would work. He ate more than he had a month back. He was currently picking at the same potatoes, scowling at the plate. He didn't offer an answer to Reno's question, which caused the redhead to growl and sling the salt shaker at his head. "GOD DAMNIT, SEPH."

Once again, no answer. He didn't have anything to say to anyone, and though he knew that it got in the way of communication, that it was counter productive to what he wanted, acceptance, he couldn't exactly bring it in himself to suck it up. He wanted to tell him what was wrong, but really, what was the point? It sounded stupid when he imagined himself just saying how lonely he was. It was weak, and that was something he'd been taught to avoid like the plague: weakness. He raised his eyes, finally, to train on a violently angry redhead. He saw the determined look, so he finally swallowed his pride and opened his mouth, though it wasn't what Reno wanted to hear. "I'm perfectly fine. To fade away is fine because I wasn't an existence before I was born. What would be missed once I was gone if I wasn't here so long ago to start with? Fading is very relevant to living. If you fade, then you're no more than a memory." He remembered Cloud's words. To be in his memories…that would be lovely.

Reno stared at him, slack-jawed. He didn't know what to say about what he'd said, but he knew that there was something wrong. "Seph… I want'cha t'go to the doctor."

The ex-general stabbed his fork into the middle of the plate, broke it into shards, spilling his unfinished dinner onto the table. "I don't want to go to the doctor. You said if I ate, I wouldn't have to go."

"Sometimes ya gotta go t'get better, Seph. And not the type'a doctor yer thinkin' of. Kinda like the doctor I'm goin' to and they're good. Real good. They can make ya feel better, Seph. Loads better, an' ya won't have t'worry about nothin'. It'll make ya happy again if ya go and ya do what they tell ya to do when it comes to…y'know, meds."

Sephiroth's pupils narrowed to thin slits, contrasting to his eyes that got wider. Medicine? Reno should've known that wasn't a magic word. Sephiroth was frightened of doctors, frightened of medication, wouldn't even take cold medication when he was sick. So why would he take anti-depressives? "NO."

"Seph, c'mon." Reno rose from his chair and wandered around, getting to his knees next to the silver man's chair. "It's gonna make ya better."

The green eyes turned to look at him and Reno saw disgust hidden there. "You want me on medication so that you don't have to deal with me. You don't want me around in my right mind."

Reno didn't know what to say to that. "Seph, that ain't it. …Anti-depressants ain't like that-"

"They make you happy, correct?"

"Yeah, supposed t'regulate out the shit in your head t'make ya feel better-"

"I'm not happy. By default, why should I be happy, Reno?" The redhead felt highly uncomfortable, tried to back up a few steps, but the silver one was too fast. He was so much faster, so much stronger. The ex-general reached out, snagged him by the front of his shirt and jerked him up to stare him in the eyes. The psychotic look made Reno want to squirm away, but he didn't dare. He was frightened of Sephiroth, though it wasn't for the fact that he could kill him. Sephiroth wouldn't kill him (he didn't think so at least), but he was frightened if he jerked away, he might provoke him into doing something to himself. What if he thought that Reno didn't trust him? It wouldn't be good. "I'm not happy and there's nothing wrong with my mind. Do you know why?" He gestured toward the window, turning his head toward it and pointing with his other hand.

"I killed people." It wasn't anything new. "I killed people. Innocent men, women, and children, and I almost destroyed the fucking planet." He tightened the grip on Reno's shirt front, made him gasp for breath. "Tell me, Reno. If you were the bane of society, would you want to exist?" He shook him fairly like a rag doll. "Try to destroy the world, Reno. Try to kill everyone on it." He glared at him, the fiery green mako burning with high intensity. "Try to kill everyone on the planet, then you come back and preach fucking medication and happiness. Preach happiness, light, and redemption. You tell me that you can be an angel, and then you fucking DO IT."

Sephiroth shook Reno so hard that his brains rattled. Reno gasped for breath before he was dropped. He heard the scrape of a chair as the angry former-SOLDIER got up from the table and left him as a heap. Reno gaped, rubbing at his neck where the collar of his shirt had bunched up, counting his breaths and his heartbeat. "Seph… Ya ain't happy cuz ya got a problem… Why don'tcha want help, yo?"

**********

"If ya don't go t'counselin', I'ma leave ya."

Sephiroth glowered up at his lover, offered a fairly feral growl. "You can't threaten that." He lost the aggressive look in his eyes and peered down at Reno's stomach as he sat atop him. "You're…" He lowered his voice to mutter something, but Reno got the gist.

The redhead leaned in, tracing his fingers through the silver locks of hair. "It's for yer own good, yo. If they give ya meds… That's the best thing for ya. Ya might get off with just counselin'. I'm scared I'ma come home an' find ya dead, Seph. I might just follow ya if I ever find ya dead. I don't wanna die and I know ya don't want me to die… And I don't want YOU t'die, so I guess we gotta work together to reach a common goal, don't we, yo?"

Sephiroth took a deep breath and released it. "I suppose. I don't like doctors."

"Sometimes ya gotta go to the damn doctor to get better." He rocked back against Sephiroth's thighs, scowling down at him. "Ya go to the damn doctor or I'm gone."

Sephiroth smirked, reached up and grabbed his arms, rolled him onto his back and held him there. "What if I keep you here against your will?"

Reno hadn't thought about that.


	4. Why?

"Seph, ya like rides. Why ain'tcha lookin' around?" The therapist had suggested that Reno take Sephiroth places, try to expose him to more people in hopes of changing his reputation, changing how he looked at things. It didn't do a very good job of making him feel good about himself. As a matter of fact, it did the opposite. He didn't want to move from the bench he'd taken in front of the carnival games. He had his head held down, long silver sheet of hair down over his face as he tried to do his best to be ignored.

Ignored he wasn't. People wandered by, gaping with wide open mouths at the fallen general, some children pointing and their mothers slapping their hands down and then lifting them, shuffling off with them before green eyes could be cast upward in their direction. Reno wasn't sure if Sephiroth even heard him over the people that were talking around them. "I knew this shit was a bad idea, yo. I knew I shouldn'ta listened to that stupid shrink… Shit, Seph, let's just go."

Sephiroth wouldn't move from the bench though, just hugged himself tighter. Reno had to physically lean in and snag his arm, jerk hard. Green eyes turned up toward him and looked sad. Reno had expected anger or something else similar to said emotion, but the raw hurt he saw in those emerald orbs seemed to pack the issue down a little more. "Seph, babe, let's go home. Please? C'mon, we don't need this shit. We just need'ta get home and snuggle up in bed an' be warm."

The general didn't say a word, just stood up and let Reno lead him toward the exit of the amusement park.

**********

There were days when he didn't want to open his eyes. Sephiroth was forced to, though. Reno forced him to open his eyes, forced him to get up out of bed, forced him to move around and do the things that were set before him to do, in hopes of 'normalizing' him, as the psychiatrist had put it. He'd been placed on medication, but really he didn't want it. He'd chosen to stop taking it, though he was always sure to make sure he put it in his mouth and swallowed.

After awhile, Reno got smart with that when his sour moods didn't improve. Those were the times when Sephiroth was forced to swallow the medication and then later choke them back up into the toilet when Reno wasn't around. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, but it left the silver one empty of everything. It felt like every time he threw up, a little piece of his soul that was left over went right along with it when he flushed.

**********

Reno sighed. "Sephiroth... Why ain'tcha gettin' better, babe?" He stroked those silver strands of hair back out of the general's face, leaning in to kiss smooth forehead. "Ya ain't gettin' better and I dunno why. I'm doin' everythin' I can... Why don'tcha get better? I dunno how much longer I can take this. I dunno how much longer I can stand t'sit by and watch it. Why don'tcha do what ya need t'do to get better?"

Sephiroth never told him why he didn't want to get better. The silver one rarely talked anymore. There were hardly any 'yes's or 'no's even. There was no communication from his side of the relationship, as if he'd given up, and Reno didn't like that. "If ya keep this shit up, I'ma have ya committed. Y'know what they're gonna do if I have ya locked up?" He pressed his nose into those long strands of hair, taking in the scent of elegance. Sephiroth had always been elegance, had never been anything but until recently.

"They're gonna make ya take the meds, stronger meds. They'll make ya high as a kite and I know ya dun wanna be a zombie, do ya?" When he didn't get an answer, he closed his eyes and nestled his nose against his charge's ear. "I need ya t'get better. Please get better."

Reno had learned that elegance was fleeting.

**********

"Mister?" Sephiroth was stirred out of his thoughts when he felt a small hand tug on his trench coat. Turning his eyes from their position of having been locked in a mindless stare at a far off building, he glanced down at the little one that was doing the jerking. "Mister? Mister, you're General Sephiroth, aren't you?" The startled man wasn't quite sure what to say, but he knew he didn't want to be there right then. He started to walk away, but the little hand remained in his trench coat, jerking again. "Mister, my brother served under you."

He froze in his spot, a lump forming in his throat. He turned to the little girl and stared down at her, surprised to see a smile. It was the first one he'd seen in over a year directed toward him from someone besides Reno. It was sincere. It made the military man's heart hurt. "Mister, I have a picture of him. Will you sign it? He died serving. But he was really proud." He felt the touch of glossy paper against his hand as the child held the picture up, nudging. She obviously carried it with her wherever she went. What an innocent, ignorant little child...

Sephiroth took the picture and the pen that she offered, looking down at the angelic face once more. She beamed, practically glowed with the light of childhood. He sickened himself. With a heavy heart and a hand that hadn't written in a long time, he signed his name on the back of the military photograph as well as he possibly could, then turned it over to look at the youth. He'd been very young, around eighteen or nineteen, with sharp cheek bones and a lopsided smile. The helmet he wore was tipped backward and he was happy. Guilt ate away at his insides as he stared into the dead soldier's eyes. He handed the child the photograph and squatted next to her, reached out and touched the top of her head.

"Your brother was a brave soldier. He was a good man. Always remember that."

The girl's face cracked into a proud smile and she released a giggle that Sephiroth could've compared to that of an angel's. "He's waiting on me in heaven! Did you see him while you were gone?"

"Clara! Come this INSTANT!" A woman that looked nothing like the little girl, and the general realized that it wasn't her child. There were other children tagging along that looked nothing like her. She was an orphan.

**********

"Why ain't ya eatin', Seph?"

**********

"Why do you not relate well to other people, General? Do you not feel important enough to express your emotions?"

**********

"Why-"

"Why?"

"WHY?!"

The word dulled his mind, picked at his soul, made it want to fester and burst. Sephiroth was tired of wondering why.

He was tired of being asked why.

He was tired of the world of why and why not and why come and why go and why why why why why-

**********

"Seph. Talk to me. Please… Babe, wake up. Please wake up, Sephiroth."

He tried to. He was in a fog, couldn't understand what was going on. He felt the prick of a needle in his arm, felt something else, saw a light shining in his eyes. He heard several different voices, and all of them sounded clinical, medical.

"Arsenic?"

"Where the hell do you buy arsenic these days?" Sephiroth felt the corners of his lips pull up slightly in a smile. Where indeed? Thirty three ways existed. He'd counted.

He winced internally when the female medic piped up. "But… why?"

He fell into unconsciousness as they transported him to the hospital.


	5. Afterlife

Reno never trusted him to be on his own anymore. Not that he could really blame him, but it was never good to be forced to take medication. Forced to take pills, forced to take this, forced to take that, forced into counseling, forced into life. He was tired of living, tired of forcing himself to breathe each and every day, but he trudged along in life. He recovered from arsenic poisoning almost as if he was getting over the common cold. It was as if nothing had happened except for the medications that Reno foisted upon him, made sure he took every day. They were white pills, white pills that brought on strange feelings in his mind, strange feelings he didn't like, didn't encourage, but felt anyway. They didn't help, but he didn't tell his lover that.

Reno seemed to be happy as long as he was smiling every once and a while, so he continued his façade. If he continued it, then he could watch the redhead smile and wouldn't have to hurt quite as badly.

**********

Reno remembered when he wanted to live. When he'd been happy to do his job and do it well, do it without having to be prompted, do it without medication and without the stares of other people. Well, he'd always had stares, but they were in admiration for something that they could never be. It was admiration in him being a war hero, a saint, a person that protected the people. He'd known things would never be the same again, but even if they weren't, he hadn't figured things would be as bad as they were in the current moment. Sephiroth refused to be what he had been, and Reno didn't really blame him for that.

He felt like he had to atone, and the redhead knew that. However, if he only knew how much the world had to atone for the things they'd done against him, he wouldn't feel nearly as bad. Sephiroth refused to listen to the reasoning behind it, the reasoning behind them needing a protector, the reasoning behind it not being his fault, that ShinRa had tampered with his mind.

He couldn't blame Sephiroth for not believing him. He'd been lied to so many times in his life that he couldn't really see him ever trusting anyone again. But he trusted him? Perhaps. And then again, perhaps the silver general loved him enough to pretend that he trusted him. He took the medication whenever asked since he'd gotten out of the hospital, but Reno still didn't trust him to go out on his own. He knew that something bad would happen, and he wasn't quite sure if Sephiroth would stop something if it were to occur.

He knew Sephiroth wanted to die, and he was going to fight tooth and nail to prevent it, die with him if he couldn't.

**********

They hadn't made love in months. The first time they'd touched since then, it was strange, as if they'd just found one another again. Sephiroth's eyes didn't sparkle like they had so long ago, but his cries of pleasure were just as sharp and beautiful to the redhead's mind. He watched his face in the end, tried to imagine himself in the past, tried to imagine Sephiroth younger, less world-wise in the sense of the destruction he'd been goaded into causing with the world thanks to that damned alien.

But goddess, he was so beautiful with that hair over his eyes in orgasm. Reno could pretend at least for a moment as he stroked those angelic tresses away from his lips before leaning in to kiss them.

**********

He'd always liked bars. Sephiroth stared down at his drink and then over at his companion who was laughing along with the Turks that they'd gone with. Sephiroth felt like a third wheel, felt like he didn't belong, but he nursed his drink along anyway, ignoring the fact he wasn't supposed to take in alcohol with the medication he was on. Who cared? The world was already hellish. A little loopy never made anything better or worse.

**********

"He ain't s'posed'ta drink with 'em. Shit. He's all… Fuck." Reno leaned against Sephiroth's form, trying to keep him from hitting the floor. It wasn't like he was going to pass out, it was more like he was numb. "We gotta get 'im home, 'fore somebody tries t'jump our asses or somethin'. Should'a known better. Shit, I'm gonna kill 'im when he gets outta this. He should'a KNOWN he wasn't s'posed'ta drink."

Rude just sighed and lifted the silver one over his shoulder to keep his partner from having to lug him around in his own intoxicated state. It looked like they were walking back to the apartment.

**********

Sometimes avoidance was the best thing when it came to dealing with stressed relationships. Often, one party or the other would cave in and curl up against the other. Reno noted how it was always Sephiroth asking for forgiveness. He noted how Sephiroth always seemed to hold his head down, as if things were perpetually his fault. He stroked the long strands of hair in his lap as the ex-general sat in the floor. "Not everythin's yer fault. … Ya just ain't got no incentive t'not be the way ya are, Seph. Don'tcha wanna keep livin'? Around me?"

"I'll live for you."

"Then that's all I need, yo. Jus' don't leave. I think I'd go off the deep end if you did." Those green eyes didn't sparkle with life as they turned up to look at him. In fact, they had question in them.

Sephiroth just wondered if anyone would miss him if he was gone.

**********

Fresh air was something that he could easily obtain anytime that he wished due to his superior mobility in taking to the air, despite Reno's wishes. And he'd chosen that afternoon to do so. Sephiroth stared down at the sidewalk as he sat there on the corner. Children passed from school, some of them holding the hand of a parent, others walking freely, talking to friends. Edge was a strange place in his opinion, somewhere he thought privately to himself he would never raise a child. Perhaps it was the close proximity of Midgar that he took into effect, with the fading radioactive background due to the mako reactors. Perhaps it was the dull and dreary weather around the city. He didn't like Edge. It reminded him of Midgar so much despite the lack of plate, despite the lack of obvious ShinRa influences.

He saw a flash of red and expected Reno, but was surprised to see a little girl walking with what appeared to be an older brother. They had shockingly red hair and were laughing, though they looked to be no relation to his lover. He watched them walk along in their uniforms, thinking to himself about how a child of his or a child of Reno's would look.

Not like it mattered. Nothing mattered anymore.

**********

"Y'think he's gonna come back t'night, yo?" He sighed and stared at his phone, looked up at Rufus. He'd noticed Sephiroth missing an hour after he was gone and that was only because the general had a habit of leaving notes even before he'd gone insane. He'd noted the time, just signed that he was going out and had taped it to their bedroom door. He'd left the window open, curtains fluttering in the breeze. "Y'think he'll kill himself, yo?"

Rufus shifted in his spot, staring down at the handwriting. It was still neat and tidy after all of those years, still as spotless as the general had always been when it came to doing things. "I don't think he will. I think he knows how much he means to you. I think that your Sephiroth is going to come back to you. And I think you should trust him more, Reno. What is a relationship without trust?" He taped the paper back to the door, shoved his hands back into his trench pockets where they'd been residing before he'd taken the note. "If I didn't trust Rude to come back home after a mission, where would we be?"

"That's different, yo. Rude don't take antidepressants. Rude ain't swallowed no arsenic tryin' t'kill hisself, yo."

"No, but Rude could come home in a bodybag just as easily as Sephiroth could rip his own intestines out with that blade of his-"

"Ain't gonna be no rippin'." Reno smirked. "I took masamune away from 'im when he came back."

"He could take it if he wanted to. He could kill you and then kill himself if he wanted to. But he's not going to. He wants to live, and I have a feeling it's only because of you."

"Nah. Seph don't wanna live. I can see it in his eyes. The only reason he's stickin' around is cuz he knows somethin' bad would happen if he left. I think he wonders if we'd miss him if he was gone. Have ya thought about hirin' him back?"

"I would love to hire Sephiroth back for something, even if it's only desk work. However, I currently have Reeve breathing down my neck, trying to prevent any work-related incidents. I swear, if I have to kill him to get some peace, then Sephiroth is going to be the first man that I hire back onto the staff. I need a good general, and Sephiroth was definitely the best and the only one I would ever trust to be back in the position."

Reno turned to him and frowned. "Even with the meds?"

"Everyone has their demons, Reno. Always remember that. Whether a man wants to escape his demons or not is entirely up to him. If Sephiroth can escape those demons riding on his back, then he's going to be a better man for it."

"An' what if he can't get away from 'em, yo?"

Rufus looked over at the open window and leaned against the wall. "I think you should talk to Sephiroth about what he believes dealing with the afterlife."


	6. So Long

After life. It was defined as the way that one would spend their eternity after death. Reno had even looked it up, had stared at the definition and read it over several times. He couldn't figure out why Sephiroth hadn't come home that night, and he was worried. He wanted him to come home, wanted to hold onto him, wanted to tell him how much he loved him and wanted to talk to him about what he believed in. Did Sephiroth believe in anything? He wasn't sure. He clapped the dictionary shut and looked out of the window, noting how dark it was getting outside.

The street lamps had turned on, cast a green glow on the streets outside of the apartment that they shared. He got up and stood beside the window, looked up the street and then back down, and then up at the sky for good measure, but there was no silver. There were no indications that Sephiroth was going to come home, that he was on his way, and he didn't even have his cell phone. He'd left it on the table before he'd gone out of the window earlier that day. The redhead took a deep breath and released it, shakier than he normally would've.

Reno had a bad feeling about that night and he wasn't sure why. He just knew that whenever he had that bad feeling, something went wrong.

He didn't want anything to go wrong with his Sephiroth. He just wanted what was his, wanted everything to be better, but something inside of him told him that he wasn't going to get better. Truthfully, he'd already given up on him. He just didn't want Sephiroth to give up on himself, so he'd stuck around and made sure Sephiroth thought he believed. Reno was a realist, though. Even in all of the miracles he'd seen, all of the wonders that he'd noted in the past, he didn't believe that his love was coming back the same.

He mourned.

**********

Sephiroth took a deep breath and released it as he wandered the alleyways. He wasn't someone who had a place to go. Well, he had a place to go home to, but he didn't have a particular place he had to be at a particular time and he didn't really care to go home. Reno would accept him home, would love him, would care, but right then he didn't want loving. He didn't want care. He cast green glance up at the streetlights above him, then looked past it at the sky. The moon was out and was glimmering alluringly, as if it promised something good that night. He would welcome whatever came to him, good or bad, and hoped for the good.

Maybe it was the medication taking effect. Maybe it was the fact that he was loved sinking in, loved by at least someone. He just knew that he didn't want to die at that particular moment, and he was happy with living in the moment when he knew that everything was right, he wasn't being noticed, and everyone was laughing and talking outside of the alley, as if they'd never heard of General Sephiroth and ShinRa. And he wanted it to stay that way, never wanted ShinRa to enter those innocent minds that were walking hand-in-hand with parents on the streets. He wanted the children that he saw wandering around, headed home with their mothers and fathers, to stay innocent to the fact that their worlds almost didn't occur, that they'd almost faced a bleak future at his hands.

Regardless of what he wanted for them, he stepped out of the alley, turned to walk back toward his apartment. He had to get home before Reno started to worry, had to make sure that everything was okay. He shoved his hands in his pocket and continued on, letting his hair trail behind him. It'd grown back, was once again recognizable, part of the reason he couldn't hide. And people took notice almost immediately. From his hoodie to his jeans and to his eyes and hair, he was Sephiroth, no matter what he changed into. And people stopped and stared, as if he were some type of disease-carrying rodent wandering through a hospital.

Sephiroth glanced over to the side, caught the look of someone that was near him, hovering around with a camcorder. He looked at him with disgust and automatically threw his hand up to push the camera out of his face before a blow sent his senses reeling. He felt white-hot pain coursing through his body, all the way down to his toes, stumbled before he could catch himself. Another blow struck him in the face, and he heard the sickening crack of bone and cartilage as his nose broke. He tasted blood as electricity shot through his body, attempting to fuel his revenge toward the people.

These were people. Innocent people. Sephiroth stopped and unclenched his fist, caught another blow across his jaw with whatever was being swung at him (he fancied the thought of a large metal pipe, but a baseball bat was also a possibility). He felt something break loose in his mouth as more blood started to pour. He gagged on it and fell backwards against the building before a blow landed across his chest, against his rib cage. He felt searing pain rushing through his body, could only wrap his arms around his head, try to stop the inevitable.

He wouldn't harm these people. His conscience would not allow it.

This was deserved, for the things he'd put them through, deserved for what he'd put the world through. The Goddess was paying him back. She was going to show him the pain he caused, show him everything. This is the beginning of hell, isn't it? Minerva take me… I don't know if I'm strong enough. He heard a cry of pain from his own lungs without even realizing he'd made it. He didn't feel his vocal cords move, didn't want to scream or cry or whimper for sympathy, and he didn't. He screamed from the sudden impact of whatever he was being hit with slamming into his chest.

It was then that he realized it was a multiple somethings. He felt the brick wall give way, but really he just slipped to the side, the corner catching his cheek and scraping it as he fell backwards, stumbled. His foot hit a puddle of sludge and he tripped, the back of his head racking against the dumpster the puddle had originated from. His eyes started to blur as he rolled, landing on his side at the base of the trash receptacle. Someone stepped beside his head, right on his hair. They leaned over, he could feel the rush of air current as their body moved, and snagged the hair that wasn't trapped underneath shoe, jerked his head up.

Green eyes cracked open slightly, and in his double vision, he saw two young women, glaring down at him with hate. Twins? No… Vision. He forgot. Sephiroth swallowed blood and teeth as the woman leaned down, pressing her bat against his broken nose. "How does it feel? Does it hurt? Like you hurt my father?" She ground the end of the bat against his face, a smirk of sadistic pleasure crossing her face. "Are you scared, you bastard? Answer me. Go ahead."

Sephiroth found that he was having trouble moving his jaw to form words. It was then that he realized it'd been broken in the altercation. He couldn't move his lips well, could barely register his own breaths and then only with the periodical pain of broken ribs scrubbing against muscle and bone as he gasped in his throes of unbelievable torment. He swallowed more blood, let his tongue dart clumsily against his lips in preparation for pseudo-speech. "No…"

"That's what I thought. The general is NEVER scared. Look at this, guys! He's not scared. Let's make him scared!" The whistling sound of bat cutting through air reached his ears a split second before the mind-numbing crack of wood against bone. Sephiroth's pupils drew into tiny slits as he felt the pain. Did he feel it? He didn't know if he felt it. He just knew that something was felt, knew that the sounds associated with the sensation were right and yet he couldn't quite place it. He heard it over and over again, felt the snap as if twigs were breaking underneath his feet as wood sailed downward against his shins and knees, snapping bone wherever it hit. He could see the shaggy hair of a man behind the girl's shoulder, as she'd moved to sit on his busted ribcage.

The girl ground his head against the street underneath him, the man with the camcorder hovering nearby, lens no doubt trained on him as the brutality occurred. "Tell the nice man what you're feeling. You're scared, aren't you? Do you hurt? Oh god… Look at him. He used to be so beautiful. What a horrible gang-beating."

Sephiroth swallowed more blood and blinked, staring at the sky over the girl. He felt like he wasn't even in his own body. Was he dead? No. He could feel the cold underneath his back, the gritty pain of debris grinding into his head wound, could feel as the woman wrapped her hand around his mouth and his broken nose and pressed down. So this was it.

He was going to die by suffocation at the hands of a woman, broken and bloodied in a back alley in Edge. He stared up at the woman, piercing green eyes losing their foggy confusion. He glared right into her soul, thought of one person and one person only. His hand twitched and he tried to reach up and grab her, to regain control, but that last lifeline was severed when a bat sailed down, crunching his arm. The other was trapped against the brick wall and his body, and he doubted he would be able to gain enough control to use it. Sephiroth continued to stare up into her eyes, calm, even as his battered lungs screamed for oxygen.

A sound startled the girl, broke the seal over his mouth and nose, caused him to be able to take a giant gulp of air. He heard someone saying something about getting out of there, leaving. The camera man? He turned his head slowly, giving sweet release against the grit in his wound, stared at the man in almost-disbelief, giving the opportunity of blood to trickle from the corner of his mouth and down his cheek, matting in his hair. The camera man couldn't have been any older than sixteen or seventeen, stared at him over the camcorder, looked at the others, and then took off, running. Sephiroth felt a painful pressure against his chest as the girl put her knee in it to rise, then they chased after him.

He was alone.

Fear overtook him for a moment before it calmed again. It didn't matter. Sephiroth closed his eyes before he heard footsteps next to his head, again. He opened his eyes just a crack as he felt the last gasping shallow breaths. He stared up into the lens of the boy's camera as he peered down at him emotionlessly.

Sephiroth parted his lips to say something, but nothing except blood gurgled out.

The silver general closed his eyes the last time. Forgive me.

**********

Reno stared at the ceiling. Sephiroth hadn't come back home. It was midnight, and Sephiroth wasn't home, and that was a bad thing. He knew that something was up, knew that things had gone awry, didn't know if he was even going to see Sephiroth again. What if he'd killed himself? What if he wasn't even in the world anymore? He had a strange feeling in his stomach, but really, what could he do?

The redhead sighed and rose from the bed, taking Seph's pillow with him as he wandered toward the computer, sliding into the chair that had been tilted over from them cuddling in it several times over the past year or so. He shifted his weight to compensate and shoved the pillow under his chin as he wiggled the mouse to make the screensaver disappear. YouTube would clear his mind, would take his thoughts away from the Sephiroth that was in current day. He loaded the page, looked up toward the top and started typing.

'General Sephiroth Wutai Masamune'

Things that brought up images of Sephiroth, videos of Sephiroth at press conferences, information about him in his heyday, things that would remind him of what he'd had. … It wasn't what he found.

He stared at the video, choked on his own saliva as he clicked on it. He waited for it to load, bile rising in his throat as he read over the information.

'I thought that this should be captured. I'm not one for gore, not one for blood, but this was General Sephiroth. He was attacked by a gang of people, a mob with baseball bats when he stepped out, not bothering anyone. I felt the way they did at first, didn't want to see anything but his death, but they were so vicious. I felt so guilty, and I left after the girl started to smother him, but then I realized that history was taking place. Why would someone ignore history? So, here is history. Reno, whoever you are, though I have a feeling who you are, please forgive him and me.'

The redhead's eyes widened and he turned back to the video, clicked play. Reno bit his lower lip until it started bleeding, watched it straight through from the first attack until his last dying breaths, until he begged to be home. He heard his own name and tears sprang to his eyes. Reno hurriedly clicked on his username, forgetting to hit pause. He heard the death rattle of the general right before the browser decided to kick into action. The username, the person behind it… He didn't know much about him except he lived in Edge and was a seventeen year old high school student interested in making movies.

The Turk clicked the back button to watch it again, to pick out bits and pieces that were fake, to reassure him that Sephiroth was still breathing, was alive somewhere, waiting to call home. Perhaps he was drunk? Perhaps he was detained by the police for lewd behavior? Perhaps… perhaps… Reno's breath hitched as he saw the message that the video had been removed, rose to go put shoes on right as his phone rang. Reno jerked it out of his pocket, casting a glance over at Sephiroth's cell phone that had been left behind, pressed it to his ear. "SEPH?!"

It was Rufus's smooth voice. "Reno. Come in. We need to talk to you. It's of dire urgency. Just… Come in and don't worry. Everything is okay."

Reno wasn't stupid. He could hear the thinly veiled stress in the President's voice, knew that his greatest fears had been confirmed. Sephiroth wasn't coming home, was he? He was about to go identify a body, wasn't he? The Turk was numb as he closed his phone and turned. He slipped on his shoes and tossed the pillow onto the bed, snagging Sephiroth's in case it wasn't true. He walked out of the door clutching the phone in his hand. Marching to his doom.

**********

Rufus stared at the body. The body? More like the mass of flesh that had been found in the back alley. Chewed up from blunt force trauma, bones shattered into a mess of nothing beneath jeans and hoodie and flesh, fingernails ripped and mangled from scratching at something, fingers twisted on one hand from another blow from the bat. They'd checked Sephiroth for vitals.

His general had died at a time unknown, without anyone around. Rufus stared down at him, stared into those glossy green eyes and reached out to close them. "Do we have any information about what happened?"

"We have information about a video that was on the internet just a few moments ago, showing things occurring. It matches the trauma on his body and the girl that was sitting on his chest matches the description of the daughter of one of the soldiers that Sephiroth disposed of back in the Crisis."

"Have her hunted down, along with whoever else was involved. I want to see them personally. Leave no stone unturned, and make sure that they're scared when they come in."

Tseng bowed his head. "As you wish, sir." The reserved Turk turned to head out of the room when a bundle of redhead slammed into his chest, nearly knocked him backward. His arms went up automatically to steady the younger man, but he found no shoulders. Reno had slipped fluidly past him and he paused, staring at what was before him.

Reno wandered toward the body, hand shaking as he reached out to touch the almost unrecognizable face. His fingers ghosted against bruised and abused flesh, tracing contours that had been perfect just that morning. The redhead was shocked into silence, stood there dumbly as he took in the damage that had been done to his boyfriend, the boyfriend that had survived so much.

He could feel his insides shaking as he removed his hands from the cold flesh, tracing the lump in his blazer. It was time. He'd thought about it the entire way there, thought about what would happen if Sephiroth had joined the Goddess, thought about ending it. And so, he made his decision.

Reno drew his gun from his holster and pressed the barrel into his mouth, squeezed the trigger right as a weight slammed into him. The gun went off with a loud reverberation, burning bullet piercing through molar and flesh of cheek as Reno hit the floor. The firearm clattered and slid away, going off again, bullet ricocheting against metallic walls as Rufus ducked out of the way. Tseng straddled the smaller Turk, fighting to hold his arms down. "Sir, call someone!"

The redhead bled on the floor as Tseng jerked him up and then slammed him back down. The back of his head collided with the floor and, mercifully, Reno fell unconscious.

**********

"They say he missed anything vital. What are we going to do, sir?" Tseng stared at Rufus's back as they stood in the President's new office. The young man was staring out of the window, though in reality he saw nothing. "We can't just let him go. He tried to do that, he could be a danger to himself and others."

"After Sephiroth's funeral, he's going to be committed."

"Committed?" He'd thought more about Reno living with one of the Turks, but apparently Rufus had less confidence. "Is that really called for?"

"He's not in his right mind, Tseng. I think he's broken. Maybe they can help him better than any of us can."

"Rufus, we can only pray they can."

"Indeed… Why did it have to happen to the two of them?"

Tseng shifted, folding his hands behind his back. "Well, I'm not quite sure. It has to do with bad luck and mental status. I don't know how much they went through…how much more they could've stood. Maybe I should've let him do it?"

"Never say that again, Tseng."

"Yes sir."


	7. It Felt Wonderful

**_A/N: This is going to be slightly hard to follow. To sum it up, Reno has gone nuts. Sephiroth isn't real. He's dead and it's Reno's mind talking to him, trying to convince him to let go. So the speech patterns are as they are, even if Sephiroth isn't speaking like 'himself'. It's meant to be a jumble of patterns all mixed up in Reno's mind, emulating what he remembers of Sephiroth and what he perceived to be._**

"And whyever would you want to do that?" His tone was gentle with an added level of firmness added to the edge, as if scolding a favorite child. Sephiroth sat there, smiling at Reno, wearing nothing but his trench coat and his smile, green eyes glistening in the sunlight of the private beach that Rufus had loaned them to stay the weekend. "Whyever would you want to leave the earth when you make it such a good place, Reno?"

Reno opened his mouth, stared at Sephiroth, then closed his mouth. This… Was it all a nightmare? It couldn't be. But it was. It was a nightmare he didn't want to wake up from.

"Do you see it?"

"See what?"

"The light, Reno. Did you reach for it? I did. I reached for it. Why didn't you?"

"I dunno what'cher talkin' 'bout, babe."

Sephiroth shook his head, those big green eyes losing their happiness, transforming into fear. "Why didn't you?"

"Why didn't I what?"

Things changed, shifted to a back alley. Reno found himself staring down at the broken, bleeding body. It said nothing for a few moments, then opened its eyes, speaking with broken jaw and slurred speech. "Why didn't you save me?"

"I couldn't... I couldn't save nobody even if I tried."

"You saved yourself. You went on, lived your life. Why?"

"I didn't. I tried t'help ya."

"No, you tried to medicate me, shove me aside, make me better without making me feel better. Does it hurt?"

Reno's eyes widened and he backed away from the corpse as it exploded into a casket. The coffin was black, polished to a high sheen, rested on top of a raise dias in the middle of the church that a congregation had assembled in, sat weeping in. They stared at Reno, icy glares of several of his best friends going right through him. "Rufus? Rude?" But they didn't see him. They stared right past him, at the casket.

Speaking of, he turned and walked toward the black box-containing-death, placing a hand on top of it. It was warm, as if it were living, and he could feel a pulse. "Do you hear it?" It was almost like a whisper. The hair on the back of Reno's neck stood up. "Do you hear it? Do you hear it? Do you hear it? Do you hear it? Do you he-"

"SHUT UP!"

Do you hear it. Do you hear it. Do you hear it-

"Please! Stop... Please Seph, I'm so sorry... Please goddess-"

A whisper of breath across the back of his head stirred his hair around, made him all too aware of someone sliding up behind him. He caught the glimpse of silver and a chill ran up his spine at the ghostly way that green eyes looked so hollow. "What's the matter, yo?"

Reno was dumbfounded. Sephiroth never spoke like that. "What's goin' on, Seph? Please stop this. I swear I didn't mean'ta-"

"I swear I didn't meant'a kill you. I swear I didn't meant'a shove pills down your throat. I swear I didn't meant'a hold you like a caged bird, yo. I swear I didn't meant'a ignore you when ya needed me most, yo."

Reno stepped away from the image of his lover as it faded, remembering the strange, foreign words in that all too familiar tone and voice. Why was Sephiroth speaking like him? Why was Sephiroth so angry? He'd done wrong, hadn't he?

"You've done a horrible disservice to me, Reno." He was back, chin resting on the redhead's shoulder, thin fingers wrapping around his upper arms with an iron-like, icy grip. "Why did you leave me alone? To die alone? Why have you not followed? You said you would follow. You didn't do what you said you would do. Did you forget me? Do you have someone else? Do you have somewhere else to be in this universe?"

"No... Seph please, I didn't mean'ta-"

"I didn't meant'a, I didn't mean'ta, I didn't mean'ta-"

**********

Rufus took a deep breath and let it out, staring at the redhead in the center of the room. It'd been a long year since he'd been committed, a long year of nothing but failure, suicide attempts, and hallucinations. Sessions where he talked to someone that was no longer there, speaking in strange patterns, calling out for his lover that was long since placed in the ground in peace. Rufus ShinRa didn't know what to do. He tapped his fingers against his upper arm as he stared down into the bandaged face of what was once his best Turk, large eyes unfocused, staring off into space.

He let his eyes slide over the bandage, the blood having started to seep through to color the outside of it even though it was thick enough to catch the flow and keep it from going any further. It'd been a wound that wouldn't heal. Reno wouldn't let it heal. He seemed to have a penchant for allowing it to heal just so and then reopening it, gouging it out again with anything that was on hand, be it eating utensil or some other apparatus. The staff at the sanitorium had banned him from using writing or eating instruments months back, but he always seemed to be able to find some way to re-open it.

That wound. That wound was symbolic of something that was beyond any of their control. The wound wouldn't heal and neither would Reno's soul, and even deep in his own heart, Rufus knew that his Turk wasn't going to recover. He knew that nothing he did was going to help him. He'd been contemplating letting him go for a long time, but he'd never taken it seriously.

There, in the middle of the floor, in a straitjacket, that was nowhere for a Turk to be. He bit his lower lip and sighed, letting his eyes leave that ghostly, disturbed gaze for a moment to rake across legs. They were the normal pants issued to the patients in the asylum, but they had streaks of blood on them, as if Reno had done something TO someone besides himself. It wasn't really doubtful in the President's mind. His Turk was more than capable of taking out a patient, even if he wasn't very good at causing his own demise.

Rufus jumped when he heard a man cough behind him. He'd forgotten who had accompanied him, forgotten the tall bald man in the back of the room. "What are we going to do, Rufus?"

The President turned to look at Rude, studied the expression he wore on his face. It would've been so much more helpful had he not had sunglasses on. "I don't know what to do anymore... I mean. Look at him. This isn't the way that a Turk should live."

Rude shook his head. "I think we need to go home and think about some things, Rufus. I have some information on that girl. You know, the one that did this entire thing." The girl that everyone blamed. Everyone in ShinRa hated her with a passion, even the ones in the lower typing pool. She'd caused their boss stress, caused him anger, caused him to crack down hard on all of them in an effort to locate, hunt out, and punish. And punish she would be.

"What kind of information?"

"We caught the stupid bitch. She tried crossing into the lower district of Edge this morning, and one of our patrol units recognized her from a picture in town and took her into custody."

**********

Diane Brooks was never one to fear repercussions. She'd killed before. Killed to eat, killed to survive, killed just because she wanted to kill. She'd beaten the general to death, the general of the world, and she slept like a baby. Yet, as she sat there before the brat. THE brat, the one that ruled everything that she knew, everything that she'd ever known, she felt nervous. Diane knew that whatever was about to happen was not going to be pleasant for her, and she knew in her heart of hearts that she probably wasn't going to walk out of the office alive.

Rufus ShinRa took a deep breath and pressed his hands against his desk calendar. Diane took a moment to observe some of the writing in the blocks underneath his gloved fingers. Appointment here, appointment there. Reno in one of the blocks. That was the name of the redhead she'd broken. Diane smirked. She knew about him being committed, had even visited him a few times to tell him just what she'd done and how much she'd enjoyed doing it. The brat-President cleared his throat, which caught the murderer's attention. "And tell me, Miss... Brooks. Miss Brooks. Why did you kill my favorite general?"

"First of all, he was the only general you had left, and he was decommissioned."

Rufus narrowed his eyes. "Only scrum makes use of technicalities. But go on. Explanation."

"He killed my family. I watched on as your bastard general skewered each and every one of my family members and left them to die in pain. So I returned the favor."

The blonde glared across the way at the woman before dissolving into disturbing laughter. "He killed my family. I arrived as my father was dying upon his blade and he was left to die there like the pig he was. Sephiroth just weighed out his good deed with a bad one. Must you repay cruelty and insanity with death?"

"He deserved to die. He took innocent lives. He was not innocent. He was not spotless. My little sister was seven years old."

"Sephiroth was thirty. He hadn't picked up a blade in a year. He kept to himself, rarely spoke, had just started going back out on his own when you and your little boyfriend found him. We found the cameraman, too. They've both been dealt with. You're the only one left, little girl. Tell me, did it feel good?"

Diane let a smile creep across her face as she pushed her hair out of her eyes. "It felt WONDERFUL. To watch the life leave his body as we were beating him to death. It felt like nothing I'd ever had before. I like power, Mister ShinRa. It feels good to have it once in your life. I would do it again and again and again and again if I had the chance. But, unfortunately, I didn't think to bring a phoenix down with me to revive him so I could repeat the pleasant experience."

Rufus felt bile rising in his throat, but instead of acknowledging his sickness, he met the woman's pleased look with a glare. "We've got special things lined up for you. So that you can feel what he felt again and again and again and again. We've ordered some baseball bats just for the occasion, and Rude, my dearest favorite Turk over here, has been researching torture methods since we saw your pretty little face on that video footage. He's had time to perfect them, too. With Reno."

"Reno?" She snorted. "He's locked up in the loony bin. They threw away the key and he's NEVER getting out again."

Rufus smiled that smile that meant he was up to no good. His voice dropped to a dangerous whisper as he leaned forward. "... We hired him back just to deal with you, Miss Brooks."

**********

Reno knew nothing of torture. Well, his own torture, yes. He stared at the wall, tried to ignore the person in the corner of the room, the emerald gaze that he just wanted to go away. Medication time was a little while away, and he only had to wait for the settings of his dream to change to something otherworldly, entirely more entertaining than cushioned walls and white decor. He saw the figure in the corner shift and walk toward him, though it didn't look like the silver god touched the surface of the cushions. "Why do you stay, Reno? Why not join me?"

"Tried t'join ya. They won't let me, yo."

"You're not tryin' hard enough, Reno."

"Seph, please stop this shit... Please don't do this. I'm so tired'a this, yo. I'm so tired'a livin' an' listenin' to you die. I jus' wanna go. I wanna go home t'you. I want everythin' to stop mockin' me."

Sephiroth laughed and leaned in, ethereal face close to his as those insane green eyes shimmered maliciously. "It'll never be over. Mother and you and I, we're going to go on like this for all eternity. And there will be song and dance and no peas in sight, and the arsenic will be passed around as soon as dinner is over. And then mother will tuck us into bed and tell us a story as we drift off into dreamland. Won't it be grand?"

Reno closed his eyes to ignore the part of his mind that was taunting him. The only problem was that was that he still saw those eyes, taunting and degrading even behind his eyelids.


	8. Infinitely

Rufus stared down into those eyes that had held so much promise and so much love for the longest time. His breathing was becoming sporadic, was slowing down as the red locks were played through the president's fingers, stroked. Rufus watched the light starting to leave those eyes. He watched the redhead starting to let go, and in his mind, Rufus looked back on the things that had transpired to make things go the way they had.

**********

There were certain things to be said about a woman in pain. A woman that had caused so much pain, writhing in agony on the floor from the emotional pain that the bald man was channeling through his being, administering to her. Diane took a deep breath, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out if she was still alive or not. And that was the way Rufus liked it.

She was on the verge of death, and he loved it.

She was feeling every bit of the pain, fear, humiliation, and torment that Sephiroth had felt right before his passing. And it tasted so good. He could smell the fear, taste it, almost cut the tension that it caused with a knife, and the young ShinRa knew that the raw, untamed, wildness of it was going to be the woman's undoing. He wasn't going to let her die.

No, she was going to die until she broke into a million pieces, until her soul shattered the way that his friend's had, the way that Reno would never realize that his was. It would never be repaired, and the girl was going to pay in spades for what she'd done, whether she'd meant to break him to that extent or not.

He watched Rude step forward with the baseball bat, watched him level it to those lovely brown locks of hair, rub them to the side with the tip of the bat. One of the curls fell loose from the matted amount of blood on her forehead, dropping against her shoulder as those eyes followed the large end of the bat, up toward the sunglass-hidden eyes. "Please…"

Please? PLEASE?! Rufus laughed as he stood up from his desk and took a few steps toward her. He leaned in and pressed his fingers against her jaw, scratching lightly with his nails. "Please? I don't believe you. You just said please? Please what?"

"Please don't do this."

"Break her fucking jaw." He released her face and only seconds later, the sickening crack of a bat against flesh and bone reached his ears, teeth spattering out and bouncing across the carpet, blood leaving speckle marks against his beautifully pristine white suit and Rude's sunglasses. "Break it again. In another place." Rude stepped around Rufus, to the opposite side. The President saw in his peripheral vision, the sight of the large man drawing back in a swing. He brought the bat down full-force against the other side of the woman's jaw, displacing it, knocking it out of alignment with her face, sending a grotesque image across Rufus's mind, forever burned there but so gladly held onto. "Let's hear you say it again, bitch."

He heard the groaning mumble of the woman in agony, saw the pain and the fear in her eyes, saw the humiliation, saw how badly she wanted to be let go, to just get out of the pain. Hospital or death, he knew she didn't care. And he loved it.

"Let's hear you say you're sorry."

He heard her mumble some semblance of an apology, but the adrenaline and sick feeling in his stomach spurred him toward getting more out of it than just that. She said it again, but he shook his head. "Break her."

Rude didn't have to be told twice. He drew back and started to wail against the young woman's body. Rufus stepped back and took a seat upon his desk again, ignoring the blood spatter against his suit, against his walls, even against his clean ceilings, or formerly-clean ceilings.

**********

Rude took a step back and stared down at it. It being the body that was once a woman, the body that no longer held life or any soul or anything that would signify that she'd done anything wrong. That was the job of a Turk, to turn the guilty masses into a puddle of nothingness. Nothingness so that they could never be mourned for, so that they could never be marked and memorialized. And so she was nothing but a body to be burned and scattered in the slums.

The silent Turk dropped the bat to the carpeted floor with a dull thud, listening to the sound of the wood reverberate around the office. He reached down and pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, tapping them to knock two out. He offered one without a word over to his boss/lover and then put one between his own lips. He lit his own, then passed the lighter to Rufus, taking a seat next to him on the desk.

The two men spent the next ten minutes in silence, smoking and staring at the corpse in their presence. Finally, Rude spoke up. "He's never going to get better."

Rufus pressed a hand to his face, holding back the emotion that he knew was threatening to spill forth from the subject. He'd been thinking about it for awhile now. He'd been plotting, thinking, planning. "I know he's not going to get better." He swallowed thickly. "A Turk is meant to die in a blaze of glory, to go down fighting for what he believes in, and I think the fact that we stopped him from doing that, from ending himself, we've really taken away what he was proud of and what he stood for. I've been thinking, thinking a lot. And I think that we need to-" He swallowed hard again, trying to not lose his composure. "I think we need to make him better in the way that he tried to make himself better."

"Meaning?"

Rufus reached into his pocket inside of his blazer, withdrawing a pistol that he kept hidden there. It was a backup from his normal firearm, his shotgun, but it was enough to do the job, should he have been threatened. "The way that he tried to end the problem, I think we do too."

Rude shook his head, pulling something out of his own blazer. "I've been thinking, too. About it, I mean, and I think we need to do it another way." He shook the pill bottle in front of Rufus's eyes. "Some way that's painless. He's had enough pain."

**********

It found them there, staring at the Turk that had once been his favorite. His eyes glued to the wall, his mutterings insane and undecipherable, only the mention of Sephiroth made out from the strangled phrases and dreams that only he saw.

Reno stared into space, chuckling. "Seph… Seph I dunno no more."

Sephiroth leaned down, pressing his lips against his lover's ear, smiling as he saw the newcomers, saw them enter. Or at least…felt or sensed. "They're here. Here to take you away. You've given up on things and allowed yourself to stay here, yo. You're not welcome here anymore and yet you cling to life. You give up or fight? Neither nor. You don't try to fight anymore, yo. Yer a quitter, yo."

Reno rocked back and forth, squeezing his fingers tight into the fabric of his restraining garment as he thought of that. "I ain't no quitter… Seph, I ain't no quitter. I love ya…please don't leave."

"I'm leaving, but… It won't be long." He disappeared as Rufus slipped right through his ethereal presence, scattering what was like he was merely smoke in the air. "Not long at all…"

Rufus stroked his fingers through his turn's bangs, pulling him back against him, placing his head down on his lap. "Hey Reno…" He heard Rude step up and sit down next to him. He watched as Rude leaned forward and clutched Reno by the shoulders, jerking him into a tight hug. He wore his sunshades just right but Rufus knew what was going on. He was saying goodbye as he knew he would have to.

The large bald Turk squeezed him tightly. "Sorry, kid. So sorry we let it go so long. You're going to be okay, promise. Everything's going to be okay. You were like a little brother." He pushed Reno gently back down to lie against Rufus.

Rufus stared down at the redhead, stared at those glossy green eyes, wondered exactly what was going on behind them. He knew it wasn't even worth it to try and find out. Reno wouldn't talk, wasn't coherent…couldn't even figure out they were in the room. "Goodbye, Reno. We're going to miss you. It'll never be the same without you around."

**********

Rufus stared down into those eyes that had held so much promise and so much love for the longest time. His breathing was becoming sporadic, was slowing down as the red locks were played through his fingers, stroked. Rufus watched the light starting to leave those eyes. He watched the redhead starting to let go, and in his mind, Rufus looked back on the things that had transpired to make things go the way they had.

Rufus knew that he wouldn't give Reno's memory up for anything. He knew he had to hold onto it else there would be nothing else left.

As Reno stopped breathing and went to sleep, Rufus collapsed back into Rude's arms and sat there as the body grew cold.

**********

Reno opened his eyes and saw light. Light? Wasn't that cliché? He didn't know if it was or not, though he figured it might've been, but he knew that he was looking at something that fit entirely into the clichéd scene, right down to the wing. Wing? Wasn't it supposed to be wings?

The green eyes were smiling along with the face of the man that they belonged to. Long, silvery white hair hung around his bare shoulders, wind whipping it gently in the light as if he were a seraphim, an angel waiting to take him home. The voice that rang out was rich, happy, something he wasn't used to, hadn't heard in a long, long time even if it belonged to the same illusion/person that he was in love with. "What took you so long?"

Reno looked down at the hand extended, waiting to take his. "Jus'… Needed a little push, yo." He reached out and took the hand, looking back over his shoulder at a solid plume of white. "Thanks, yo. For the push. I needed it."

The two rose quietly into what they were destined to partake in, despite their atrocities. When Reno inquired as to why they were there instead of further south, the beautiful seraphim laughed, those green cat-eyes dancing. "Because Mother forgives infinitely. She loves us, even if we hate ourselves."

"I love Ma, yo."


End file.
